Rhymes a la Mode
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BALLADE DEDICATORY
TOMRS. ELTONOF WHITE STAUNTONThepainted Briton built his mound,And left his celts and clay,On yon fair slope of sunlit groundThat fronts your garden gay;The Roman came, he bore the sway,He bullied, bought, and sold,Your fountain sweeps his works awayBeside your manor old!But still his crumbling urns are foundWithin the window-bay,Where once he listened to the soundThat lulls you day by day; —The sound of summer winds at play,The noise of waters coldTo Yarty wandering on their way,Beside your manor old!The Roman fell: his firm-set boundBecame the Saxon’s stay;The bells made music all aroundFor monks in cloisters grey,Till fled the monks in disarrayFrom their warm chantry’s fold,Old Abbots slumber as they may,Beside your manor old!EnvoyCreeds, empires, peoples, all decay,Down into darkness, rolled;May life that’s fleet be sweet, I pray,Beside your manor old.THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS
A DREAM IN JUNE
L’Envoi
To E. W. G(Who also had rhymed on the Fortune Islands of Lucian)Each in the self-same field we gleanThe field of the Samosatene,Each something takes and something leaves And this must choose, and that foregoIn Lucian’s visionary sheaves, To twine a modern posy so;But all any gleanings, truth to tell,Are mixed with mournful asphodel,While yours are wreathed with poppies red, With flowers that Helen’s feet have kissed,With leaves of vine that garlanded The Syrian Pantagruelist,The sage who laughed the world away, Who mocked at Gods, and men, and care,More sweet of voice than Rabelais, And lighter-hearted than Voltaire.THE NEW MILLENIUM
(THE UNFORTUNATE ISLANDS.)A VISION IN THE STRAND
The jaded light of late July Shone yellow down the dusty Strand,The anxious people bustled by,Policeman, Pressman, you and I, And thieves, and judges of the land.So swift they strode they had not time To mark the humours of the Town,But I, that mused an idle rhyme, Looked here and there, and up and down,And many a rapid cart I spied That drew, as fast as ponies can,The Newspapers of either side, These joys of every Englishman!The Standard here, the Echo there,And cultured ev’ning papers fair,With din and fuss and shout and blareThrough all the eager land they bare, The rumours of our little span.’Midst these, but ah, more slow of speed, A biggish box of sanguine hueWas tugged on a velocipede, And in and out the crowd, and through,An earnest stripling urged it wellPerched on a cranky tricycle!A seedy tricycle he rode, Perchance some three miles in the hour,But, on the big red box that glowed Behind him, was a name of Power,Justice, (I read it e’er I wist,)The Organ of the Socialist!The paper carts fled fleetly by And vanished up the roaring Strand,And eager purchasers drew nigh Each with his penny in his hand,But Justice, scarce more fleet than I, Began to permeate the land,And dark, methinks, the twilight fell, Or ever Justice reached Pall Mall.Oh Man, (I stopped to moralize,) How eager thou to fight with Fate,To bring Astraea from the skies; Yet ah, how too inadequateThe means by which thou fain wouldst copeWith Laws and Morals, King and Pope!“Justice!” – how prompt the witling’s sneer, —“Justice! Thou wouldst have Justice here!And each poor man should be a squire,Each with his competence a year,Each with sufficient beef and beer, And all things matched to his desire,While all the Middle Classes should With every vile CapitalistBe clean reformed away for good, And vanish like a morning mist!“Ah splendid Vision, golden time,An end of hunger, cold, and crime.An end of Rent, an end of Rank,An end of balance at the Bank,An end of everything that’s meantTo bring Investors five per cent!”How fair doth Justice seem, I cried, Yet oh, how strong the embattled powersThat war against on every side Justice, and this great dream of ours,And what have we to plead our cause’Gainst Masters, Capital, and laws,What but a big red box indeed,With copies of a weekly screed, That’s slowly jolted, up and down,Behind an old velocipede To clamour Justice through the town:How touchingly inadequateThese arms wherewith we’d vanquish Fate!Nay, the old Order shall endure And little change the years shall know,And still the Many shall be poor, And still the Poor shall dwell in woe;Firm in the iron Law of things The strong shall be the wealthy still,And (called Capitalists or Kings) Shall seize and hoard the fruits of skill.Leaving the weaker for their gain, Leaving the gentler for their prizeSuch dens and husks as beasts disdain, — Till slowly from the wrinkled skiesThe fireless frozen Sun shall wane,Nor Summer come with golden grain; Till men be glad, mid frost and snowTo live such equal lives of pain As now the hutted Eskimo!Then none shall plough nor garner seed, Then, on some last sad human shore,Equality shall reign indeed, The Rich shall be with us no more,Thus, and not otherwise, shall comeThe new, the true Millennium!ALMAE MATRES
(ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865)St. Andrews by the Northern sea, A haunted town it is to me!A little city, worn and grey, The grey North Ocean girds it round.And o’er the rocks, and up the bay, The long sea-rollers surge and sound.And still the thin and biting spray Drives down the melancholy street,And still endure, and still decay, Towers that the salt winds vainly beat.Ghost-like and shadowy they standDim mirrored in the wet sea-sand.St. Leonard’s chapel, long ago We loitered idly where the tallFresh budded mountain ashes blow Within thy desecrated wall:The tough roots rent the tomb below, The April birds sang clamorous,We did not dream, we could not know How hardly Fate would deal with us!O, broken minster, looking forth Beyond the bay, above the town,O, winter of the kindly North, O, college of the scarlet gown,And shining sands beside the sea, And stretch of links beyond the sand,Once more I watch you, and to me It is as if I touched his hand!And therefore art thou yet more dear, O, little city, grey and sere,Though shrunken from thine ancient pride And lonely by thy lonely sea,Than these fair halls on Isis’ side, Where Youth an hour came back to me!A land of waters green and clear, Of willows and of poplars tall,And, in the spring time of the year, The white may breaking over all,And Pleasure quick to come at call. And summer rides by marsh and wold,And Autumn with her crimson pall About the towers of Magdalen rolled;And strange enchantments from the past, And memories of the friends of old,And strong Tradition, binding fast The “flying terms” with bands of gold, —All these hath Oxford: all are dear, But dearer far the little town,The drifting surf, the wintry year, The college of the scarlet gown, St. Andrews by the Northern sea, That is a haunted town to me!DESIDERIUM
IN MEMORIAM S. F. AThe call of homing rooks, the shrill Song of some bird that watches late,The cries of children break the still Sad twilight by the churchyard gate.And o’er your far-off tomb the grey Sad twilight broods, and from the treesThe rooks call on their homeward way, And are you heedless quite of these?The clustered rowan berries red And Autumn’s may, the clematis,They droop above your dreaming head, And these, and all things must you miss?Ah, you that loved the twilight air, The dim lit hour of quiet best,At last, at last you have your share Of what life gave so seldom, rest!Yes, rest beyond all dreaming deep, Or labour, nearer the Divine,And pure from fret, and smooth as sleep, And gentle as thy soul, is thine!So let it be! But could I know That thou in this soft autumn eve,This hush of earth that pleased thee so, Hadst pleasure still, I might not grieve.RHYMES A LA MODE
BALLADE OF MIDDLE AGE
Our youth began with tears and sighs,With seeking what we could not find;Our verses all were threnodies,In elegiacs still we whined;Our ears were deaf, our eyes were blind,We sought and knew not what we sought.We marvel, now we look behind:Life’s more amusing than we thought!Oh, foolish youth, untimely wise!Oh, phantoms of the sickly mind!What? not content with seas and skies,With rainy clouds and southern wind,With common cares and faces kind,With pains and joys each morning brought?Ah, old, and worn, and tired we findLife’s more amusing than we thought!Though youth “turns spectre-thin and dies,”To mourn for youth we’re not inclined;We set our souls on salmon flies,We whistle where we once repined.Confound the woes of human-kind!By Heaven we’re “well deceived,” I wot;Who hum, contented or resigned,“Life’s more amusing than we thought!”EnvoyO nate mecum, worn and linedOur faces show, but that is naught;Our hearts are young ’neath wrinkled rind:Life’s more amusing than we thought!THE LAST CAST
THE ANGLER’S APOLOGYJust one cast more! how many a year Beside how many a pool and stream,Beneath the falling leaves and sere, I’ve sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream!Dreamed of the sport since April first Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow,Adown the pastoral valleys burst Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow.Dreamed of the singing showers that break, And sting the lochs, or near or far,And rouse the trout, and stir “the take” From Urigil to Lochinvar.Dreamed of the kind propitious sky O’er Ari Innes brooding grey;The sea trout, rushing at the fly, Breaks the black wave with sudden spray!* * * * *Brief are man’s days at best; perchance I waste my own, who have not seenThe castled palaces of France Shine on the Loire in summer green.And clear and fleet Eurotas still, You tell me, laves his reedy shore,And flows beneath his fabled hill Where Dian drave the chase of yore.And “like a horse unbroken” yet The yellow stream with rush and foam,’Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet, Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome!I may not see them, but I doubt If seen I’d find them half so fairAs ripples of the rising trout That feed beneath the elms of Yair.Nay, Spring I’d meet by Tweed or Ail, And Summer by Loch Assynt’s deep,And Autumn in that lonely vale Where wedded Avons westward sweep,Or where, amid the empty fields, Among the bracken of the glen,Her yellow wreath October yields, To crown the crystal brows of Ken.Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal, Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide,You never heard the ringing reel, The music of the water side!Though Gods have walked your woods among, Though nymphs have fled your banks along;You speak not that familiar tongue Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.My cradle song, – nor other hymn I’d choose, nor gentler requiem dearThan Tweed’s, that through death’s twilight dim, Mourned in the latest Minstrel’s ear!TWILIGHT
SONNET(AFTER RICHEPIN.)Light has flown!Through the greyThe wind’s wayThe sea’s moanSound alone! For the day These repayAnd atone!Scarce I know,Listening so To the streams Of the sea, If old dreams Sing to me!BALLADE OF SUMMER
TO C. H. ARKCOLLWhen strawberry pottles are common and cheap,Ere elms be black, or limes be sere,When midnight dances are murdering sleep,Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!And far from Fleet Street, far from here,The Summer is Queen in the length of the land,And moonlit nights they are soft and clear,When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!When clamour that doves in the lindens keepMingles with musical plash of the weir,Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep,Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!And better a crust and a beaker of beer,With rose-hung hedges on either hand,Than a palace in town and a prince’s cheer,When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!When big trout late in the twilight leap,When cuckoo clamoureth far and near,When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap,Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!And it’s oh to sail, with the wind to steer,Where kine knee deep in the water stand,On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere,When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!EnvoyFriend, with the fops while we dawdle here,Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!And the Summer runs out, like grains of sand,When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!BALLADE OF CHRISTMAS GHOSTS
Between the moonlight and the fireIn winter twilights long ago,What ghosts we raised for your desireTo make your merry blood run slow!How old, how grave, how wise we grow!No Christmas ghost can make us chill,Save those that troop in mournful row,The ghosts we all can raise at will!The beasts can talk in barn and byreOn Christmas Eve, old legends know,As year by year the years retire,We men fall silent then I trow,Such sights hath Memory to show,Such voices from the silence thrill,Such shapes return with Christmas snow, —The ghosts we all can raise at will.Oh, children of the village choir,Your carols on the midnight throw,Oh bright across the mist and mireYe ruddy hearths of Christmas glow!Beat back the dread, beat down the woe,Let’s cheerily descend the hill;Be welcome all, to come or go,The ghosts we all can raise at will!EnvoyFriend, sursum corda, soon or slowWe part, like guests who’ve joyed their fill;Forget them not, nor mourn them so,The ghosts we all can raise at will!LOVE’S EASTER
SONNETLove died hereLong ago; —O’er his bier, Lying low, Poppies throw; Shed no tear; Year by year, Roses blow!Year by year,Adon – dear To Love’s Queen — Does not die! Wakes when green May is nigh!BALLADE OF THE GIRTON GIRL
She has just “put her gown on” at Girton, She is learned in Latin and Greek,But lawn tennis she plays with a skirt on That the prudish remark with a shriek.In her accents, perhaps, she is weak (Ladies are, one observes with a sigh),But in Algebra —there she’s unique, But her forte’s to evaluate π.She can talk about putting a “spirt on” (I admit, an unmaidenly freak),And she dearly delighteth to flirt on A punt in some shadowy creek;Should her bark, by mischance, spring a leak, She can swim as a swallow can fly;She can fence, she can put with a cleek, But her forte’s to evaluate π.She has lectured on Scopas and Myrton, Coins, vases, mosaics, the antique,Old tiles with the secular dirt on, Old marbles with noses to seek.And her Cobet she quotes by the week, And she’s written on κεν and on καὶ,And her service is swift and oblique, But her forte’s to evaluate π.EnvoyPrincess, like a rose is her cheek, And her eyes are as blue as the sky,And I’d speak, had I courage to speak, But – her forte’s to evaluate pi.RONSARD’S GRAVE
Ye wells, ye founts that fallFrom the steep mountain wall, That fall, and flash, and fleet With silver feet,Ye woods, ye streams that laveThe meadows with your wave, Ye hills, and valley fair, Attend my prayer!When Heaven and Fate decreeMy latest hour for me, When I must pass away From pleasant day,I ask that none my breakThe marble for my sake, Wishful to make more fair My sepulchre.Only a laurel treeShall shade the grave of me, Only Apollo’s bough Shall guard me now!Now shall I be at restAmong the spirits blest, The happy dead that dwell — Where, – who may tell?The snow and wind and hailMay never there prevail, Nor ever thunder fall Nor storm at all.But always fadeless thereThe woods are green and fair, And faithful ever more Spring to that shore!There shall I ever hearAlcaeus’ music clear, And sweetest of all things There Sappho sings.SAN TERENZO
(The village in the bay of Spezia, near which Shelley was living before the wreck of the Don Juan.)Mid April seemed like some November day, When through the glassy waters, dull as lead,Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead, Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay, Rounded a point, – and San Terenzo layBefore us, that gay village, yellow and red,The roof that covered Shelley’s homeless head, — His house, a place deserted, bleak and grey.The waves broke on the door-step; fishermen Cast their long nets, and drew, and cast again. Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free,When suddenly the forest glades were stirred With waving pinions, and a great sea birdFlew forth, like Shelley’s spirit, to the sea!1880.ROMANCE
My Love dwelt in a Northern land. A grey tower in a forest greenWas hers, and far on either hand The long wash of the waves was seen,And leagues on leagues of yellow sand, The woven forest boughs between!And through the silver Northern night The sunset slowly died away,And herds of strange deer, lily-white, Stole forth among the branches grey;About the coming of the light, They fled like ghosts before the day!I know not if the forest green Still girdles round that castle grey;I know not if the boughs between The white deer vanish ere the day;Above my Love the grass is green, My heart is colder than the clay!BALLADE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY
I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves Among the shining salmon-flies;A song for summer-time that grieves I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves. Between grey sea and golden sheaves,Beneath the soft wet Morvern skies,I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves Among the shining salmon-flies.TO C. H. ARKCOLLLet them boast of Arabia, oppressed By the odour of myrrh on the breeze;In the isles of the East and the West That are sweet with the cinnamon treesLet the sandal-wood perfume the seas; Give the roses to Rhodes and to Crete,We are more than content, if you please, With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!Though Dan Virgil enjoyed himself best With the scent of the limes, when the beesHummed low ’round the doves in their nest, While the vintagers lay at their ease,Had he sung in our northern degrees, He’d have sought a securer retreat,He’d have dwelt, where the heart of us flees, With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!Oh, the broom has a chivalrous crest And the daffodil’s fair on the leas,And the soul of the Southron might rest, And be perfectly happy with these;But we, that were nursed on the knees Of the hills of the North, we would fleetWhere our hearts might their longing appease With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!EnvoyAh Constance, the land of our quest It is far from the sounds of the street,Where the Kingdom of Galloway’s blest With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!VILLANELLE
(TO M. JOSEPH BOULMIER, AUTHOR OF “LES VILLANELLES.”)Villanelle, why art thou mute? Hath the singer ceased to sing?Hath the Master lost his lute?Many a pipe and scrannel flute On the breeze their discords fling;Villanelle, why art thou mute?Sound of tumult and dispute, Noise of war the echoes bring;Hath the Master lost his lute?Once he sang of bud and shoot In the season of the Spring;Villanelle, why art thou mute?Fading leaf and falling fruit Say, “The year is on the wing,Hath the Master lost his lute?”Ere the axe lie at the root, Ere the winter come as king,Villanelle, why art thou mute?Hath the Master lost his lute?